The path forward for the clean energy transition
The climate community will want to restore what it lost. That’s the wrong strategy.
By Lily Bermel
Lily Bermel is a visiting fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy.
Excerpt: When President Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year, much of the climate world declared America’s energy transition dead. The law rescinded most of the grants and loans from 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act and phased out the wind and solar tax credits — just as the Trump administration rolled back regulations on fossil fuels.
But the obituaries were premature, at least for the power sector. Yes, the administration’s policies will result in less clean energy and higher prices. But the energy transition was never a creation of statute. It’s driven by technological innovation, market forces, geopolitical competition and national security imperatives. The direction is settled, and policy sets the pace. …
Moreover, the context that produced the IRA — enthusiasm to combat climate change, cheap money and jobs-first policy — is gone. Today’s politics revolve around soaring energy demand, exhausted fiscal capacity and affordability. Lawmakers will face hard trade-offs across policy priorities.
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Third, be honest about reliability requirements during decarbonization. The grid needs power that is always available, and gas is the only cheap source that can provide it today. My report highlights an inconvenient truth: The fossil fleet doesn’t shrink even as renewables grow.
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The climate community should build on what survived a Republican trifecta, not resurrect the playbook that got killed.
